Britney and gossip, and baby makes three

So Britney Spears has hatched an heir.

There's much we can say, but we know one thing for certain: No matter what that little baby boy gets stuck on his birth certificate — Preston or London or Paris — the world will never know him by that name.

The name game has already been played out. We're partial to Cletus Jr., in deference to ol' Kevin's unofficial moniker. The cult favorite, of course, is the Federletus (coined, as best we can recall, in the Gawker-Defamer axis), though that name becomes less useful now that the kid has been born.

And because his entire indentity will be channeled through his mother, we'll undoubtedly see a million iterations of "Britney's kid" and the alternates — "Britney's brat," "Spears' spawn," etc.

Truth is, this all feels anticlimactic. We've had some six months to contemplate how it would unfold. We knew that it was gonna be a boy. We knew Britney's baby shower was a lavish cross-cultural muddle. And after multiple reported visits to Beverly Hills baby boutique Petit Tresor, we were assured that La Brit has "very good taste" in infantwear.

Oh, and we were beaten into submission by the endless — endless! — repetitions of that darn photo of her at the Willy Wonka premiere wearing a powder-blue "I have the Golden Ticket" tank top. It was enough to put us off chocolate, and movies, entirely. (In fairness, we take some blame. We were starved for new Britney pix.)

Down-home? Yeah, right
Britney has always portrayed herself as just another down-home girl, right down to this I'm-gonna-be-a-mommy shtick. But none of it rings true, and her pop-star birth arrangements bear this out.

Consider her C-section. She reportedly told Elle, "I have a feeling I'm going to have an operation." Why? "My mom said giving birth was the most excruciating thing that she's ever gone through in her life. So if a Caesarean doesn't happen, I'll be like, 'Epidural, please!'"

Slide show   Superstar mothers Check out a great gallery of celebrity moms and their kids, such as Sharon Stone and son Roan, seen here at a New York City fundraiser.

In fairness, many moms opt for so-called "patient choice" C-sections; it's become a frequent option if you're rich enough and worried enough about pain or cosmetic issues. But it should also serve as a reminder that Britney is about as down-home as Gwyneth.

As for Kevin, this whole birth thing should be old hat to him, since he's already paraded Shar Jackson through two births, including one after he took up with Britney and left Shar at the curb with the kids. (We do honestly wonder what Shar's going to tell her son Kaleb about his Daddy's whereabouts while Kaleb was in utero — namely, off doing the deed with the Britmeister.)

Here's hoping Britney will be more persuasive than Shar in getting Kev to assume a few fatherly duties.  Will he be forced to install a baby seat in his Ferrari? (That would be a chance for the Federlover to pimp his ride.)  Will Kev be angry when his pride and joy spits up on his snazzy Hollywood-quality flip-flops and tries to yank out his earring? Will he have to attend a parent-teacher conference? Will Britney make him shave for it?

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